Sound card vs High-end integrated AC

[StrangerGuy]

If you can readily hear noises when the GPU is changing power state, or transferring a lot of data, then your actual SnR is absolute junk, and I've found that to be the case, over the years, with internal DACs.

PSRR and CMRR matter a lot more today than frequency response. Inside a PC, they are not going to be easy to get high enough to keep the spec sheet SnR or THD, if you were to measure in a PC, doing anything on the PC. With a video card in the PC, throw it all out the window. It's not the chips, and those specs they pulled from the data sheets mean little in practice. I'm sure Realtek can, in a lab, manage their numbers, and they sound fine. A motherboard implementation as equally good, however, is likely impossible.

Just getting the analog antennas away from the inside of the PC makes the biggest difference, IME. Patterns of HF noise can causing oscillation that you can bring about audible artifacts, or actually be picked up as audio frequency noise of a lower frequency (surely you've heard GSM phones before, right?).

A Behringer UCA202, IMO, is the best PC audio value out there. Or, for your headphones, get a USB DAC/Amp combo.

Like you said, the implementation matters a ton more than raw chip specs measured under ideal lab conditions.

I'll bet 100 bucks that the UCA202 line output, despite using an ancient DAC chip, will beat the pants out of any so-called high end integrated mobo audio in a Audio Precision Analyzer in stereo, and the UCA202 has actually been tested by said analyzer. So before some guy to refute me, show me the same results or GTFO.

 

[crashtech]

Some of the newest onboard implementations have pretty good isolation, I presume they put the traces off by themselves between ground planes.